The Israeli state attorney's office is to decide whether there are grounds for opening an investigation into Arab Israeli MK Ahmed Tibi for describing Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz as a "fascist" who is "responsible for murder," reported the Jerusalem Post newspaper on Thursday.
The paper said that Likud member Ze'ev Boim delivered on Tuesday a videotape of Tibi's speech in the Knesset to State's Attorney Edna Arbel. She is to examine the material on Wednesday.
Boim called for Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein to indict Tibi for incitement to murder, said the Post.
He said the Arab Israeli's comments were a "serious escalation in the verbal lawlessness of Arab MKs."
In a letter to Rubinstein, he claimed that Tibi and other Arab MKs were “abusing democracy.”
In his speech, Tibi held Mofaz responsible for the "cold-blooded murder" of five Palestinian policemen at the Beitunya outpost near Ramallah, and for the killing of Palestinian children.
Amid the furor over his comments, the Israeli government supported legislation that would ban a party or candidate from running for the Knesset if its aims or actions in the five years prior to the elections “supported a terror organization or identified with an enemy state,” the paper said.
The bill was approved on preliminary reading by 40-19, with two abstentions.
The bill’s sponsor, Yisrael Katz (Likud), conducted a verbal attack against Arab MKs while presenting the bill. "There is a political Tanzim in the Knesset. We saw its temporary commander, Ahmed Tibi, attack the chief of General Staff," he said, quoted by the paper.
Katz said his “bill would ensure that those who support Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah, and the Tanzim can't run for the Knesset.”
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that if Tibi had claims against Mofaz, he should bring them to him. "A Jew would never have been able to say such things in an Arab country," he told the Post.
Meretz leader Yossi Sarid said that several Arab MKs were "causing great damage" to the peace process and to coexistence within Israel – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
